Texas Marvels

 Previously:

Peter & Frank Do Dallas    - -    The X-Men Visit the State Fair   - -  Tom Landry: The Comic Book

Houston Heroes  - -  Spidey Visits Dallas  - -  Check Please

As you can see above, it's not uncommon for this blog to highlight comic book issues that take place in, or feature, the great state of Texas.  But sometimes there's not enough in the issue to warrant a full blown blog entry.  So here's a couple of quick hits from our pals at Marvel:

We start with Frank Castle, the Punisher.  He visited the Lone Star state awhile back with his pal Spider-Man but this time he's going to have to eat his barbecue by himself.  But that's okay, that's the way he likes it.  There's a reason they call it a "One Man War on Crime."   And this time...it's gonna be a massacre:

When he hears about a bad hombre in Houston who's pulling the old S & L scam in Houston, Frank decides it's time to head south to dish out some punishment.  Unfortunately, he and his sidekick have a fairly limited understanding of Texas geography:

Well, as you can imagine, with the Punisher there's always plenty of bang bang punch punch.  Suffice it to say, the bad guys were thoroughly punished.   Our next stop takes us to Big D for less violence and more moodiness.

This issue of X-Men took a break from the usual action packed melodrama for some non-action packed melodrama.  The main story primarily takes place while Storm (from the movies) convalesces in home/offices of Forge (not from the movies).  And where might that be?  The fictional Eagle Plaza in the non-fictional city of Dallas:

Most of the story takes place indoors but occasionally you get a peak at the skyline.  Most comic book artists skimp on skylines and just add one or two recognizable buildings in.  So when you see a comic story taking place in Dallas, you can be sure that, at the very least, you'll get a few shots of Reunion Tower:

And sometimes that can be enough.  We head east for our next stop but there's a little bit of a set up.  You remember the movie Logan's Run, right?  Well, as happens from time to time, it got a comic book adaption from Marvel.

You may remember that we covered how the film was shot in the North Texas area and it made use of unique settings like the Fort Worth Water Gardens.  Here's what they normally look like:

And here's what it looks like in the movie:

And, you guessed it, here's what it looked like in the comic:

So there's a quick trip around Texas via the funny book pages.  You never know when your town will be the backdrop for a vigilante dispensing justice or a sci-fi struggle.  So be careful out there.

Peter & Frank Do Dallas

Exciting things happen in Dallas all the time which attracts visitors from far and wide.  Celebrities, politicians and dignitaries get the headlines when they visit but for my money nothing beats a pop-in from one of our favorites from the superhero community.  We've seen the State Fair patronized by the X-Men and Spider-Man teaming up with the Cowboys in the past.

Today we're going to take a look at another visit from Spider-Man but this time he brought his wacky pal Frank Castle, the Punisher!

Written by Gerry Conway with art from Sal Buscema, this 1988 story begins with Spidey slapping around some burglars on the Punisher's boat the "Golden Girl."  He's on the hunt for the missing, Bea Arthur loving, vigilante.

We soon see that the Punisher has made it to Texas and is cooling his heels at DFW Airport.  You can tell he's in Texas because there is a guy in the background wearing a cowboy hat:

It turns out that he is being controlled by a mutant (Code Name: "Raymond") who is working for the Spider-Man/Daredevil villain Kingpin.  They have come to the Lone Star State so that the Punisher can kill the infamous Lobo Brothers, who have just made the front page of the now defunct Dallas Times Herald:

Marvel had a long collaboration with the paper including the release of freebie original comics in Sunday additions like the aforementioned X-Men & Spidey comics.

Back in New York, Peter's detection skills were shown up by a local newscast revealing the location of the person he had spent weeks looking for:

So like a true hero, he forgoes the "snuggling" with his super model girlfriend to head south to check in on his man crush.  Remember the superhero code:  "Bros before hoes"

At this point in the Spiderverse, Peter had published a book of his photographs of Spider-Man and so his cover story for traveling was book promotion.  Sadly, upon his arrival, he discovers it's not a big seller in the south.

If it seems like there is a lot of exposition and scenes of traveling in this comic book, don't worry, we skipped over a scene where the Punisher kills a bunch of people at an oil refinery (that was a cover for drugs and money laundry for the Lobo Brothers).  So it's not just arrivals and departures.

Peter blows off his book signing to hunt down the Lobo Brothers hoping to find his lost pal.  Since DFW isn't Manhattan, his usual web slinging travel method wasn't an option and with the lack of a Spider-Mobile, he had to stowaway on a tanker truck:

The Lobos must be doing pretty well to have a mansion on Grapevine Lake.  I guess the drugs pretty much sell themselves.  Once Spidey gets over the walls it doesn't take long to realize all hell has broken loose as he comes upon this scene with the Punisher, "Raymond" (ok, ok, his actual code name is the Persuader), multiple dead bodies and the speedo wearing Lobo Brothers:

Long story short: shots were fired, webs were "thwipped" and speedos were soiled.  After nearly drowning Spider-Man, Frank was able to shake off the bad influence and take care of business.  While the Lobos got away, the Persuader got a center mass lead Valentine from the Punisher thus ending this Texas Team-Up.  After the final page of the story I assume Frank and Pete hit Dealey Plaza, picked up some cowboy hat souvenirs and headed home.